Reborn: The Return of the Villainous Mr. Liu-Chapter 1207: Ruffle those feathers
Lin had been thinking long and hard. Thinking about Shui, thinking about himself, thinking about the little changes she had started to bring in his life. He hadn’t really thought that their paths would continue to keep crossing each other time and again. His only business was running his cafe with his brother.
But the situation kept on shifting, first because of Kang Yuze, then Jin and Alix and then Zhong Sihan came into the picture. Every time he thought they would go back to their own way was every time he was proved wrong.
He began to see her. Not just physically, but as the person she was.
And he didn’t understand what that meant. She would come to his cafe or he would visit her office, they would get talking and every conversation between them felt like he was seeing the woman Han Shui a little more than before.
But he still didn’t know what it meant to see her. He was seeing everyone else in the world, wasn’t he?
So why would his gaze drift only toward her over and over again?
Why was he starting to look forward to meeting her again?
Why did he feel curious to know more about her?
Little feelings. Little observations that kept him awake at night.
It was supposed to be only Cai and him, but then it was Shui too. She continued to be there in the equation and somewhere along the way, he began to hope that she would continue to be there.
Like she was here with him at the game plaza in this present moment, and slow as it was, but it dawned on him what seeing Shui meant. Because as they were busy playing their bowling match, Lin had observed the other male players watching her play too. She was happy for being appreciated for her score, but he was plenty sure that they weren’t solely praising her skills.
Which meant that the other men also saw her in a way familiar to how Lin was seeing her. Which also brought a considerable wave of discomfort within him.
Then came the plaza building’s assistant who was basically swooning over him and it was all thanks to Shui he understood that he himself could be an object of someone else’s observation too. While he was looking at Shui, there were others who looked at him too, noticed him too.
’Those kinds of things help...in developing a crush, you know?’
Crush.
Lin finally felt as if he was greeted by enlightenment over the subject he had been pondering for ages.
A crush.
And then it rained down on him all at once. It all usually started with an innocent crush. That was how he felt toward Yahui at one point. He simply adored her from a distance, which slowly and gradually, took the shape of love over time.
But it had all started with a crush. The feeling of wanting to see that person more, wanting to talk to them more, wanting to know more about them. So when Shui explained how the plaza assistant saw him, he began to wonder what Shui thought of him herself? It was a simple question in his mind.
I see you. Do you see me too?
Do I fit in your checklist too?
Because he had realized that there were other men out there whom she would cross paths with over the course of her life. He wouldn’t be the only guy forever to see her, so before she walked to someone else’s side, he wanted to understand what was it that counted for her green ticks in a guy?
Why did he want to know that?
"Because I think I want you to have a crush on me."
There was no point in only him having a crush on Shui. He had never taken the courage to act on his crush for Yahui, and the result was they had simply remained friends. He didn’t know if she would have accepted him had he confessed. Maybe? Maybe not? But he hadn’t taken that initiative when he had the chance. So he didn’t know what that alternate reality would have looked like.
But this time, he wanted to know. This time, he wanted to ruffle those feathers. He had already taken a back seat once. He didn’t want to make that same mistake again.
If he was seeing Shui in a different light, then he wanted to know if she was seeing him in a different light too?
And if she was, then he wanted her to have a crush on him too.
A crush. Because that was the starting point. If she wasn’t having those little thoughts about him like he did for her, then it made no sense to him that there would be any bigger picture between them.
So now as he faced her, he patiently waited for her answer in the dim light’s silence. But all he could see was her chest rising and falling as if she was having a heart attack.
"Miss. Han."
He saw her hand reaching her chest, trying to calm her hyperventilating self. Her black orbs looked out of focus as they darted left and right.
"Miss. Han."
"...What?"
"We will be in a pickle if it turns out to be a medical emergency. We cannot leave until advised."
Her black eyes snapped back to focus as they held his gaze, dumbfounded. "That’s what you are worried about?"
"I am seriously worried if you will collapse."
"...And whose fault do you think that is?"
"Whose?"
"..."
He watched her teeth grit. "You just said something extraordinary out of the blue and you have the nerve to ask who? You dropped it out of nowhere and I don’t have the time to process what you just said, so please forgive me if a medical emergency does happen to emerge."
"Oh. Do you need privacy?" He looked away for a moment and nodded. Then he stood up.
"I will be at the arcade side for sometime and leave you to your processing. Please process to your heart’s content. You can call me back whenever you feel comfortable."
"..."
